A Very Sucky Christmas
by an-alternate-world
Summary: When Eddie agrees with Buck's assertion that Christmas seems to suck this year, he decides to try to find the Christmas joy. Problem is, Eddie keeps destroying everything worth liking about the special day. Or: 5 times Eddie unwittingly crushes all the things Buck likes about Christmas, and the 1 time that showed he was actually paying attention to them all.


**Title: **A Very Sucky Christmas  
**Author: **an-alternate-world  
**Rating:** M  
**Characters/Pairing: **Evan Buckley/Eddie Diaz  
**Word Count:** 9,910  
**Summary:** When Eddie agrees with Buck's assertion that Christmas seems to suck this year, he decides to try to find the Christmas joy. Problem is, Eddie keeps destroying everything worth liking about the special day.  
Or: 5 times Eddie unwittingly crushes all the things Buck likes about Christmas, and the 1 time that showed he was actually paying attention to them all.  
**Warnings/Spoilers:** I've lifted some bits from canon and taken extensive liberties with other bits. There's a very brief mention of some very depressed thoughts in the past. And it's a pretty soft M, to my mind.  
**Disclaimer: **I am in no way associated with 911, Fox, or anything else related to that particular universe.

* * *

At first, Buck thought it was because they had to work on Christmas and that soured everyone's mood. Everyone seemed to be complaining about the holiday period. Every call they have which required a response to some sort of festive fuck-up led to a myriad of complaints that continuously dampen the Christmas cheer he kept trying to infuse the firehouse with. Since they served the LA community, the festive fuck-ups were many and absolutely outlandish, like the guy who got stuck in his chimney in a full Santa suit or the pair of girls who thought it would be great to be 'Sexy Mrs Clause' and hang out on the corner of an intersection that _already_ had awful traffic flow.

There was simply _so much_ complaining that Buck assumed that was why he didn't notice the extra heaviness to Eddie's shoulders, the blankness in his features after some of the calls, the additional sneer in many of his words when they were debriefing at the table at Bobby's regular insistence.

When Eddie invited him over to spend time making gingerbread houses with Christopher, he didn't realise the cloud of negativity would continue to follow Eddie around. Buck was almost tempted to call him Eeyore but he preferred not receiving a punch to the shoulder for his efforts at lightening the mood. He still bruised easily and he knew Eddie could hit hard.

"Is it just me or does Christmas suck this year?" he asked as he sauntered over to where Eddie and Hen were drinking – because from the look on Eddie's face, Buck couldn't use the word _enjoying_ – hot cocoa.

"Not just you," Eddie mumbled into his drink, something lost and distant in his eyes that Buck wasn't sure he'd seen there before.

It was while Hen was waxing lyrical about the magic of Christmas that Buck resolved to find some sort of way to make Christmas better for Eddie, even though he wasn't sure why it was being discarded so viciously in the first place.

* * *

Eddie's negativity was seriously testing Buck's optimistic patience and determination to increasing the Christmas cheer at the 118.

"I'm so sick of my tree making a mess of pine needles on the floor," Eddie griped to Chimney as they cleared lunch plates and Buck mashed buttons beside Hen in a desperate attempt to beat her at the latest game she'd brought in.

"I hear you, buddy. The smell is great but the mess? Maddie is lucky I love her because sweeping up those needles is a nightmare."

Buck couldn't help but look over his shoulder, pressing the pause button and making Hen hiss in frustration at him. "Talk about my sister like that again and I'll turn the hose on you."

"You don't even have a tree that drops needles!" Chim protested.

"Because it's about the tinsel and the lights and the ornaments and the star on top and the presents underneath it!" he retorted, making Eddie glance between them with an arched brow.

"Presents underneath it? You spend Christmas at our place or Bobby and Athena's."

Buck glared at Chimney, fully aware the guy was likely to become his brother-in-law at some point. Probably in the nearer future than the distant one, if he was being honest about the moony-eyed faces that his sister and Chim kept sharing. "It's the thought that counts."

"Said like someone fully aware that the presents he's getting are coal in clogs," Chimney muttered, the words just carrying far enough to reach Buck's ears. He wasn't sure if that was deliberate or not. He wasn't sure how he was meant to react to it either.

"Trees are part of Christmas tradition," he said with a final huff, shooting Eddie a glare. "And _you_… _You_ said the tree Chris and I chose was _perfect_ so you don't get to do any sort of take-backs now because you need to use a broom every couple of days."

Eddie merely blinked at him, brows dipping into some sort of confused frown, but Buck gritted his teeth and returned his attention to the television before he snapped more than a threatened alligator.

He'd barely unpaused the game when the alarms rang and he winced when Hen nearly shouted in irritation beside him that it would be even longer before they could complete their duel.

* * *

Perhaps it was because he could still feel the heat of the five-car pile-up on his face that made everything else around him feel colder than usual. He re-knotted his scarf at his throat and popped the collar of his jacket as he left the locker room at the end of his shift.

"It's not like you to feel the cold," Eddie commented as he descended the stairs, still in his navy shirt that exposed most of his arms and occasionally made Buck's brain go fuzzy when the muscles popped as he lifted something heavy which meant Buck temporarily forget how to construct coherent sentences.

"What can I say? Too long since I've been home," Buck said, wondering if Eddie would pick up on the traces of bitterness in his words or if that was something only he heard. "The cold is only worth it if there's snow, though. Snow on Christmas makes everything feel more magical and real."

Eddie wrinkled his nose as he leaned against one of the posts holding up the staircase. "Snow is just too cold and too icy and makes everything damp and slushy."

Buck's eyes widened in horror. "You take that back!"

Eddie shrugged, folding his arms over his chest and Buck wondered why his mouth went as dry as the desert as he forced his eyes to remain upwards rather than trace the muscles that curved under Eddie's arms, or the way some of the veins in his arms bulged in his skin. The worst part was that Eddie wasn't even aware that he was doing it, or that it had this sort of reaction on Buck's fragile ability to concentrate when Eddie was in his vicinity.

"I'm not taking it back," Eddie said, words slicing through Buck's distraction. "I never had snow in Texas for Christmas and it still felt plenty magical and real."

"Said like someone that has never experienced snow at Christmas," Buck insisted, adjusting the strap of his bag on his shoulder so that he had something to do rather than look at Eddie, rather than look at his arms and wonder what they'd feel like to properly touch and hold, or to have wrapped around him as they-

"Whatever you say, Buckley," Eddie said, the teasing tone infiltrating his words as he spun around Buck in a ridiculously dramatic twirl and entered the locker room to get changed. Eddie's use of his full last name left him more tongue-tied than he was willing to ever admit and coupled with the image of his arms that was seared into Buck's retinas and making him think about the swell of muscles beneath Eddie's shirt…

Fuck, he had to get out of there.

If he used his disappointment at Eddie's attitude that snow was cold and icy and damp and slushy as an excuse for leaving without waiting for the other man, then it was a better reason than confessing to imagining Eddie's arms pinning him to a wall.

* * *

It was hard to fathom that it had already been a year, and that Christopher was bigger and stronger than he was a year ago. Buck knew the depths of the kid's bravery and courage after surviving the tsunami and battling the terrifying nightmares that came with it, and he couldn't help but watch Chris standing in line to meet Santa with a touch of awe because the kid was so resilient. A woman dressed as an elf fussed around Christopher in line, and Buck idly wondered if the elf who commented on Christopher being his son was around here somewhere this year. He could remember the comment more than her face, and he definitely remembered the way it made his heart leap in his chest in shy embarrassment. Considering he'd been discussing Eddie's attempted reconciliation with Shannon, the messy and mostly sexual debacle that had ended so awfully, only moments prior to Christopher being released by the elf and then Eddie had swept Chris away, Buck thought that being mistaken for Eddie's partner had been…a weird sort of challenge to his equilibrium.

But then he'd remembered the conversation with Eddie about Shannon and knew he stood no chance, which meant the light spring in his step had evaporated almost as quickly as it appeared when he'd chased after the two Diaz boys.

"I hate these sorts of things," Eddie said, breaking the silence that had stretched between them after Christopher had wandered towards the line. Buck hadn't been able to determine whether the silence was comfortable or uncomfortable and as much as he was lost in his musings about the elf's compliment of a family that wasn't his, he wondered if Eddie was remembering that a year ago, he'd been talking about Shannon.

"What's that?" he said, keeping his smile bright and fixed on his face because occasionally Christopher would look over at them and give a delighted sort of wave that made Buck feel as light as air.

"The photos," Eddie said with a wave of his hand towards the set-up in front of them. "I used to get them done so I could send something to Shannon and my family back in Texas. But this year…"

Eddie didn't need to say it and Buck didn't need to clarify, because it confirmed that Eddie had been thinking about Shannon and it made his heart clench in his chest. He nodded instead, wanting to reach out and place a comforting hand on Eddie's shoulder or his arm and squeeze lightly in some pathetically vain attempt to offer comfort. Sitting around a fountain at The Grove didn't seem like the right sort of place for it, though. Even if that elf last year had been pretty cool with the thought of them being together.

"Then they become a record for you, and for Chris," he said, folding his twisting hands inside his jacket so he didn't do something stupid like touch Eddie when it wasn't called for, when Eddie would probably pull away from him and his eyes would shutter all the emotions he knew Eddie had to be feeling. "In ten years' time, he'll look at them and laugh and see how happy he was and how cute he was and complain about all the pimples he has in the photo you're still forcing him to take."

He felt Eddie turn to look at him, could see the edge of Eddie's somewhat amused smile from the corner of his vision if he focused on it. "I'm still bringing him here in ten years?"

"Oh yeah. You're taking him here until he's middle-aged. Even Santa starts to think it's weird by that point," he said with a flourish towards Christopher finally sitting on the knee of the big red guy. "You've got a whole wall of his Santa photos, from his first Christmas until the most recent. They're all in chronological order and they're all dead straight, because you wouldn't hang them any other way. Chris hates visiting your place with his wife and kids because he thinks it's embarrassing, but his wife thinks it's hilarious and is always pointing out the one when he's fourteen and frowning at the camera, arms crossed, because he did _not_ want to take it but you basically jammed him on Santa's knee and told him to stay put for ten seconds."

Eddie barked out a surprised laugh and Buck smiled, pleased with himself, even though he had absolutely no idea where that very elaborate stream of ideas came from. "You've clearly put a lot of thought into this."

Buck shrugged, looking at Eddie with a grin. "Not as much as Christopher has into what he's asking Santa for right now."

Eddie's eyes lit up. "Do you know? He still won't tell me."

Buck held an index finger to his lips. "I'm sworn to secrecy."

Eddie's eyes dimmed, the smile slipping from his face into another frown. "See? This is why I hate this whole exercise. Get a photo, have him tell someone else his secretive present demands, and I still have nothing and no idea."

Buck rolled his eyes and got to his feet as an elf helped Chris from Santa's knee and the kid started clattering through the exit lane towards them. "C'mon, Grinch. Your son is ready to go to the candy store."

"Candy store?" Chris' eyes brightened behind his glasses, or maybe that was just because he looked up and some of the lights hung from the Santa stall reflected off his lenses and shimmered in his eyes.

"Buck…" Eddie groaned behind him but Buck ignored it, sweeping Christopher onto his hip and bouncing him lightly as they began walking through the bustling Christmas crowds and Buck prodded Chris for any other suggestions as to what he should buy as Christmas gifts for members of the 118.

* * *

Christopher's tongue was sticking past the edge of his lips as he concentrated very intently on turning his paper this way and that way and Buck realised, with a sort of surprised delight, that Buck had done the same thing when they played video games at his place when he'd been forced not to work and saddled with babysitting duties. It wasn't something he'd seen Christopher do before, perhaps because they rarely did anything that required such intensive concentration, but it filled him with a fuzzy sort of warmth that made his fingertips and toes feel all tingly.

As a source of distraction, he picked up another piece of popcorn and threaded the needle through the blue-dusted shape before reaching for another.

"This is fun," Christopher said, lowering his scissors and starting to unfold his paper. "D'you think Daddy will like it?"

Buck looked at the multicoloured paper snowflakes that littered the floor and the table and the many which had already been taped to the walls in the hours that he had been babysitting while Eddie ran various mysterious Christmas-shopping errands.

"It certainly brightens the place up!" he said, pausing his popcorn stringing to marvel at Christopher's latest snowflake creation. Christopher shot him a huge grin, adding the snowflake to the pile beside him.

"It feels really festive," Chris said, waving a hand at the tinsel and lights Buck had pinned up once Eddie had left. The multicoloured lights caught the silver tinsel and made everything even more rainbow than they already would have been with the rainbow popcorn string Buck was working on and all the coloured sheets of paper that were scattered around them. The smell of warm sugar cookies still filled the house and he'd periodically gotten up to retrieve one for himself and Christopher and knew Eddie would probably be irritated later that he'd spoiled Chris' appetite.

"Well, it _is_ Christmas," Buck said and Chris giggled, reaching for another piece of paper and starting to fold it in whatever way he pleased to make some new snowflake shape.

Buck heard the key scrape in the lock a while later and Chris heard the footsteps a moment later.

"Daddy!" Christoper shrieked when Eddie appeared in the archway, hazel eyes dancing over the coloured lights and tinsel and paper and popcorn.

"Hey, _mijo_," Eddie said, turning his attention from the decorations to Chris, to Buck. "Hello. I take it all this colourful chaos is your doing?"

And Buck…tried not to let his winning grin slip off his face at the distance in his tone that made Buck feel like he should have just stayed at home and refused to babysit.

"It brightens everything up with festiveness!" Chris announced and Eddie's eyes flickered over everything again, lingering especially on the many paper snowflakes that seemed to have exploded all over the family room.

"I'd better find the vacuum for all the little bits of paper everywhere."

And Buck…thought his heart might have just slipped right down to join his stomach. "Eddie…"

"It's fine, Buck. Don't worry about it." Eddie had already turned away, was already retreating down the hall towards the laundry, before Buck could figure out what to say. He didn't want to apologise, not in front of Christopher. It didn't seem right that they'd spent all day trying to make the house feel warm and cosy and special and with two comments, Eddie had brought in a winter chill that reminded Buck of Christmas at home in Pennsylvania.

"Does that mean Daddy doesn't like it?" Chris asked, his voice very small and drawing Buck's attention to the present moment. Chris' eyes were very large and very sad behind his glasses, his lower lip wobbling in a bit of a pout as Buck held open his arms.

"Your Dad just likes things tidy," Buck said, helping Chris to his feet and tugging him into his lap for a cuddle, but his words felt as hollow as his chest cavity and he thought Chris probably heard it.

* * *

Buck dangled the mistletoe above Hen's head and pressed a noisy kiss to her cheek, then bounded away to find the Diaz family. Chris was already crushed into an armchair, Eddie's arm fingers toying with his curls as he spoke with his Abuela.

"Diaz's!" he announced, waving the mistletoe around like it was some sort of fluffy cleaning thing that could swirl away the dust. "I come with news."

Eddie arched an eyebrow at him, gaze catching on the green bunch of leaves and white berries, and Buck tried to pretend it was his imagination that Eddie's cheeks turned pale.

"News?" Chris echoed, staring at him with a goofy grin.

"Yes! The very best news!" Buck dangled the mistletoe above Eddie's Abuela's head, wrapping an arm around her shoulders loosely and tugging her into his side for a hug. "It's Christmas time and we're all here and we're going to be happy about it."

He made sure he looked at Eddie when he said that but Christopher missed the meaningful look.

"Why would we be unhappy at Christmas?" the kid wondered with an innocence Buck wished he could have, as if three days ago Eddie hadn't been seriously pissed off at all the bits of paper he couldn't suck up with the vacuum and then he'd entered the kitchen and found the leftover baking chaos from the sugar cookies that Buck hadn't cleaned up. The tick in Eddie's jaw when Buck had wandered into the kitchen to explain had led to him making a hasty exit instead.

Studiously avoiding Buck's eyes because he knew he was getting called out, Eddie ruffled Christopher's hair.

"Why indeed?" Buck mused, positioning the mistletoe above Isabel Diaz's head and then giving her hair a swift kiss that made her laugh and Chris giggle.

He bounded away but later, when it came time to take the photo, Buck noticed the mistletoe above his head a fraction of a second after the camera snapped the image and he froze, his eyes meeting Eddie's as the older man saw it too.

"Did you rig that up deliberately?" Eddie said, eyes narrowing.

Buck felt his stomach flip at the accusatory tone. "No. I- Actually, I put it there before we started eating to get it out of the way and then I forgot about it," he said honestly, but Eddie looked nonplussed and it just about broke Buck's heart because he just kept _trying_ and Eddie just kept being so _angry_ and he was so sick of it.

"Let's just…not make this awkward, okay?" Eddie said, inching backwards and with every millimetre that opened between them, Buck thought the dark chasm that was threatening to swallow him whole got wider and wider.

"Okay," he agreed, blinking as Eddie turned away to find Christopher and his Abuela. Buck continued blinking until he realised he needed to get away and so he descended the stairs and hid in the bunkroom for half an hour, swallowing every time he felt like the roiling sea of Christmas dinner threatened to escape and scrubbing at his eyes every time he felt them prick with tears. He would _not_ give Eddie the satisfaction of ruining Christmas more than he already had.

* * *

Buck knew what it was like to be miserable at Christmas. There had been three years where Maddie had been off the grid, and many more before that where she'd barely been in touch, or he'd been travelling, or they'd been avoiding going home. He knew what it was like to be lonely. He knew what it was like to sit on his couch, staring at some stupid movie, and drinking spiked eggnog alone. He knew what it was like to wonder what Maddie was doing, or what their parents might be thinking. He knew what it was like to long for a family and friends.

He remembered that one year, the first year he'd been in Los Angeles but no one he knew was aware of it and it was before he'd set down any sort of roots to make contacts. That year, he'd called a helpline because he'd gotten so drunk and maudlin that he'd gotten scared of where his thoughts had gone and being alone while everyone else had _someone_ else had suddenly been terrifying. At least he wasn't in _that_ place this year.

_Only just_, his brain taunted. He sipped some more eggnog in an attempt to drown it out.

It was different now, though. Or at least, it was _meant_ to be different. He had the 118. He had Maddie. Maddie had Chimney. He had the sort of father-figure he'd always wished in Bobby, and Athena had grown to be affectionate towards him too. As had Hen. And he had a best friend now in Eddie, and of course there was Christopher. He had friends. He made a new family with his colleagues at the firehouse.

And yet, the day after Christmas Day, he knew everyone had divided themselves into their familial factions and he had been left out because he didn't have a partner.

The nasty part of his brain reminded him that things might have been different if he hadn't taken out the lawsuit, where rippling fractures still threatened to shatter beneath his feet and destroy what semblance of a _life_ he was struggling to build. Part of him knew that those thoughts were wrong, that he'd been forgiven and no one held the lawsuit against him anymore, but it didn't change the fact that he was wholly and desperately alone and he knew everyone was hanging out with someone they loved.

And no one was here with him.

He rarely noticed that he didn't have someone except on days like this, when he almost obsessively kept picking up his phone to check the screen for messages or notifications before realising everyone was busily and happily living their lives without him. Maddie would be with Chimney. Hen would be with Karen and Denny. Bobby would be with Athena and Michael and Harry and May. Eddie would be with Chris at his Abuela's, or maybe an aunt's place. _Everyone_ had _someone_ and all Buck had was his spiked eggnog and a rerun of a black and white Christmas movie that thoroughly failed to put him in any sort of cheerful Christmas mood.

_What was that about not being in the dark place again?_

He scowled and swallowed the last of the eggnog before getting to his feet to search for some more, spiking it heavier than he had before. He sipped almost tentatively at his cup and winced at the burn of brandy and rum as it crept down his throat, but it fuelled the fire of loneliness that sat in his gut and slowed the spread of tentacles of cold sadness that squeezed his heart and made his stomach twist.

He startled shuffling back to his couch, glass of eggnog in one hand and the necks of the rum and brandy bottles in the other because to hell with watering the alcohol down with eggnog if he could just sit and drink straight from the bottles. Working Christmas Day meant a 48-hour reprieve and he calculated that he had plenty of time to get drunk, pass out, sleep, and recover from the hangover before he next had to pull on his navy blues.

The satisfying heat in the rum took a little of the edge off his misery but it still didn't stop him from scrunching his nose when there was a sharp knock at his door. He glanced at his phone but there were still no messages, no mention from anyone that they were stopping by. It was probably a neighbour and he could probably avoid them if he pretended he wasn't home.

There was another knock, slightly quieter this time but no less insistent, and he rolled his eyes. Okay, fine. A nosy neighbour wanted to deal with his rapidly deteriorating drunken mood? _Fine_.

He kept the rum bottle in his hand as he crossed from his little 'living room' area beneath the stairs to his front door, throwing open his door with more anger than was strictly deserved when greeting a neighbour.

Only it wasn't a neighbour.

He blinked.

"Hi." Eddie had both hands shoved in the pockets of his jacket, a green-and-red bag held together with golden coils of ribbon dangling from his wrist. Eddie's eyes drifted from his to the dark bottle clasped in Buck's hand and his eyebrows drew together.

Still annoyed, still defiant, still hurt and lonely and sad and undeniably past the point of 'drunk', Buck raised the bottle to his lips and swallowed a furious mouthful to avoid saying something he'd regret.

"So that's how it is, huh?" Eddie said and Buck's hand clenched against the doorknob so hard he feared it might break off in his grasp.

"If you came here to judge me, you can fuck right off," he snapped and Eddie grimaced, the hand that didn't have the bag dangling off it raising to rub at the back of his neck.

"Right. Okay. I deserved that." Eddie's fingers ran through his hair and Buck looked away, refusing to wonder how the strands might feel beneath his own palms or to contemplate how many nights those thoughts had kept him awake because Eddie had made himself crystal clear yesterday and after the weeks of destroying any attempted joy at Christmas things, Buck had absolutely _had_ it. "I… Uh… I'm sorry if I'm intruding on your…moment."

Buck's fingers flexed against the neck of the bottle, wondering if he could have another sip. He honestly wasn't sure how much he'd had. He probably should be more aware of that. Drinking so much and drinking alone was a great way to end up with alcohol poisoning or choking on his own vomit. The latter thought almost made him laugh hysterically because no one would even know because they were all with someone.

"Was there something you wanted?" he said instead, aiming for polite even though he was pretty sure it came off as cold as the temperature in his stairwell. "Where's Christopher?"

"At Abuela's," Eddie said, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. "I… You left so quickly when the shift finished, I didn't get a chance to…to give you your Christmas present."

Buck's sour gaze drifted to the bag. "Wasn't exactly feeling like staying around longer than I had to."

Eddie's expression faltered and the nasty little voice in Buck's head crowed, _Good_. "I know everyone in the crew really appreciated you getting all their families together for Christmas."

Eddie was doing the _gentle earnest _thing that had already left grooves in a heart scarred by Abby. He decided that any judgement about how much he'd had to drink could be ignored as he lifted the bottle to his lips again, swallowing another mouthful before glancing at how much liquid was left swirling in the bottle. More than he would have guessed, though perhaps less than he would have hoped. His head would hurt in the morning.

"I… _I_ really appreciated you getting Christopher and my Abuela there," Eddie continued and he was so awkward that Buck then became incredibly aware of how they were still standing in his doorway and that was weird, right? They never had conversations in his doorway. They never had conversations in any sort of doorway. Except he had no interest in inviting Eddie in. Not after the way Eddie had thoroughly trampled on everything that Buck kept trying to use to hold onto some sort of Christmas joy. Not after Eddie hadn't wanted to make shit _awkward_ when they got trapped beneath a sprig of mistletoe.

"You're welcome," he said, eyes flitting away to somewhere above Eddie's head. His neighbour's door, perhaps. Or the banister of the stairwell. Anything other that Eddie's big dumb brown eyes gazing at him like Buck had kicked a puppy. "It seemed like you hated everything else about Christmas this year so I could only hope you wouldn't hate having your son and grandmother with you."

"I…" A breath escaped Eddie's lips, a slight whistle indicating his teeth were gritted together and _why_ did Buck _know_ that? Jesus, he really needed to stop paying such attention to Eddie. "I'm sorry if I gave you the impression I hated Christmas, Evan."

Buck wasn't sure if it was Eddie's quiet, broken tone or the use of his first name that got under his skin and made the coiled words unravel and pool like acid on his tongue. "You complained about Christmas trees, you bitched about snow, you ruined your son's good mood at making decorations by pointing out the mess." He ticked off each item on his fingers as he went, the bottle of rum sloshing dangerously in his grasp. "You hated waiting for Chris to get a Santa photo because you'd have to send it to your family, and you nearly fell over backwards to escape the me and the mistletoe. What else has there been that I've missed, Eddie? Are you against tinsel too? Or presents? What's your opinion about fruitcake? Or candy canes? Or roasted chestnuts? Because I really-"

"Shannon died," Eddie interrupted and Buck's tirade stalled, breath stuttering in his lungs as his brain tried to catch up with the sudden halt of a freight train of opinions and anger and hurt derailing with two simple, cracked words. "Last Christmas, I gave Shannon the chance to see Christopher."

Oh.

"And this Christmas, she's gone," Buck said slowly, gaze drifting back to Eddie like he was watching an errant snowflake fall from the sky and settle on Eddie's shoulder. Eddie nodded, eyes a little unfocused at a spot over Buck's shoulder, like maybe the ghost of Shannon was hovering in Buck's entry and Eddie was more interested in looking at _her_ than at Buck. He tried to pretend that the thought didn't send a stab of pain lancing from his heart and through his chest. "Does that mean you're going to be the Grinch forever?"

A wry smile pulled at one half of Eddie's mouth. "I haven't been the Grinch."

Buck jerked the bottle of rum towards Eddie with a decisive frown. "You have _so_ been the Grinch. There weren't even any presents under my tree this morning. You probably stole them."

"There- Buck, there are _never_ presents under your tree because you don't celebrate Christmas here."

"Yes, there are," he said with a discontented sniff, swallowing another mouthful of rum and allowing himself to take half a step backwards because he really wasn't sure he trusted himself to keep standing and drinking in his doorway when the walls seemed to be melting and the floor seemed to be like he was standing on a waterbed.

"Where do they come from?" Eddie said as he took the opportunity to inch inside Buck's apartment. Buck tried to pretend he didn't notice the way Eddie's eyes skipped over the half-dismantled tree, tipped on its side and with several fragile ornaments dangling precariously from their strings. Buck hadn't been feeling particularly charitable last night when he'd gotten home from his shift and had felt like destroying everything around him and burning his apartment to the ground. Getting drunk had seemed like a positive alternative, all things considered.

"Why are you here?" he said as he made his way back to his couch, listening to the click of his front door and Eddie's shoes padding across the floor towards him.

"Well, I had this present for you," Eddie said uncertainly, setting himself on the armchair and placing the giftbag on Buck's coffee table beside the bottle of brandy and his glass of half-finished eggnog. "I…also knew you weren't at Maddie's so then I wasn't sure where you were, or who you might have been with, and it…didn't feel right that you might be alone."

Buck's eyes weren't misty as he stared at the Christmas coloured giftbag beside his drinks. They _weren't_. Just because Eddie maybe knew him better than he ever wanted to admit… Just because Eddie had made some astute observations that sliced him to the core…

"I'm not alone," he said with a wave towards the television, or maybe his bottles, but Eddie just made an unimpressed noise.

"How many Christmases have you been alone for, Buck?" Eddie said but Buck just scowled at his bottle and sealed his lips shut. There was a heavy silence, like Eddie was waiting for a response but Buck wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of an answer because honestly, Buck didn't want to think about it and he didn't want Eddie knowing just how difficult some Christmases had been for him. "I… I was deployed for two, including Christopher's first Christmas. I had the opportunity to come back, I'd accrued the leave, but I couldn't face him and his diagnosis. I couldn't face Shannon and her accusations and her shame and guilt. So I stayed in the desert with a platoon of men and I've never felt more alone."

Buck hated that he looked towards Eddie during the little speech. And that Eddie was staring straight back at him with something Buck couldn't decipher when their eyes met.

"I'm used to it," he eventually mumbled, tucking his bottle towards his chest.

"Evan-"

"Don't." Eddie using his first name was an easy way to get under his skin and Buck just…couldn't allow that to happen. Not when he'd had far too much to drink and if he really paid attention, there was some fuzziness around the edges of his vision. "I don't need your pity."

"I'm not- It's not- I don't _pity_ you, Buck," Eddie said, shifting forward in his chair. "I'm just…sad for you. You love Christmas so much and you-"

"I don't, actually," he said, looking towards the television and trying to discern if it was the same movie as before.

"You don't love Christmas?"

"It sucked at home," he said, thumb circling the lip of the bottle as he focused on the actors in the film and wished he could just fall through the screen into some wonderous world where everyone had warm, caring families. "We'd go to Christmas Mass and then my father would work through the break and my mother would disappear to some party or other and when Maddie was old enough, she'd leave too."

Eddie was silent and, for that perhaps, Buck was grateful because these were parts of his childhood he never shared with anyone. He never talked about Pennsylvania with the 118. He wasn't even sure what Maddie had told Chimney about their family. He suspected very little otherwise he assumed Chim would fuss around him more, or at the very least he'd pass on what he knew to the others and _they'd_ fuss around him more.

"But Christmas is _meant_ to be about love and family and good cheer and I-" He swallowed around the pain that lodged in his throat. "We see so much horror on some of our shifts and it's been such a crappy year that I just want to try to make it special for everyone. For Christopher. For-" His voice caught. "For _you_," he said in little more than a whisper, eyes burning as he fixed his eyes on the floor.

"Buck…" Eddie sighed, the fabric of the chair squeaking as he shifted from it and sat beside Buck. "Hey." Roughened hands curled around his own, peeling at the fingers that held onto the bottle of rum until it was freed and placed onto the coffee table out of reach. "I'm…here now."

"That's…" He sniffed despite wanting to avoid crying but goddammit he'd had too much to drink and the tenuous control on his emotions was fraying because of it when Eddie was doing that gentle, uncertain thing that meant he was trying _so damn hard_ to understand Buck even though he felt like he couldn't be decoded by anyone because he didn't even make sense to himself. "That's not the point I'm trying to make here, Eddie."

"I know." Eddie wrapped an arm around his shoulders, fingers cradling the back of his neck and nails catching near some of the hairs at the nape. Even though Buck wanted to resist it, he was always powerless to Eddie's soft, soothing touches and so he went – caught somewhere between willing and unwilling – and folded into Eddie's chest against whatever judgement that hadn't quite deserted him. "I know, Evan."

A sob got stuck behind his sternum as Eddie rubbed slow circles with his thumb into Buck's neck. "I just want to have a _family_. To feel like I belong somewhere on Christmas. And I- I almost lost all that this year and I- I'm s-sorry. I just w-want to-"

"I've got you," Eddie murmured, running his other hand down Buck's back and sealing Buck against his chest. "You belong here, okay? With me, with Chris, with Maddie, with the 118. We're your family. We all love you."

Buck shook his head as the sob finally spilled free and he blamed the alcohol for that because usually he was much better at keeping his emotions contained around Eddie. Eddie evidently heard the pitiful sound because his arms tightened around Buck's shoulders. "Everyone has someone and I d-don't."

"What do you mean?" Eddie said, fingertips dragging over every bump of his spine through his sweater. When Buck stayed silent, Eddie's hand against his neck squeezed more firmly. "_Evan_?"

"I'm just…alone. It- It's nothing new. I d-don't usually notice but… A-After yesterday, my phone's been silent a-and…and I know everyone's with someone and it just- It s-stings a bit."

Eddie rested his chin on top of Buck's head, and the forced steadiness of his breathing helped settle some of the thumping pain of Buck's heart rebounding against his ribs. "I'm alone too," Eddie pointed out.

"You have Chris."

"I-" Eddie paused, then conceded a small nod. "Okay. Yes. But that's not the same."

Buck shrugged, because Eddie might not believe it was the same – and maybe it wasn't – but at least he had _someone_. And he had his Abuela, and his aunts, and nieces, and nephews, and sisters, and parents, and Buck… Buck had his sister, when she wasn't distracted by Chimney, but they'd both stopped talking to their parents years ago. When Buck talked about feeling alone, he truly was desperately and painfully _alone_. When Buck realised that all his found-family at the firehouse were spending time with their significant others and he had no one, he meant it. It ached in a way he couldn't possibly explain.

"You know you're part of _my_ family, right?" Eddie murmured and Buck inhaled a little too sharply at the words, causing a fresh burn behind his eyes as he fought another wave of tears. "Chris and me. We love you."

And Buck…suspected Eddie didn't mean it the way Buck sometimes felt about his best friend but he'd take it because it was something. It was better than nothing. It was an olive branch. And he needed an olive branch because he needed to stop feeling so miserable. Just for a little while. He just needed to stop feeling so desperately hollow that he thought his heart was just left to bounce around his entire chest cavity.

"I love you too," he whispered, completely aware that there was more in his words than there ever had been in Eddie's or ever would be.

Eddie continued to hold him, stroking his hair and rubbing his back. The alcohol in his blood gradually seeped into his brain until he felt heavy and weightless against Eddie, until it almost felt like all of this was a lucid dream he would wake up from in the morning and find wasn't real.

"I could fall asleep here," he mumbled against Eddie's chest and it rumbled with a laugh beneath his ear.

"Then sleep, Evan," Eddie said, scratching his nails through Buck's hair again and trailing fingers down the curve of his face and jaw. "Chris is with his Abuela. I won't leave you until you wake up and need Advil and water."

Buck hummed, the little leads on his eyes increasing in weight until it was too impossible to try to open them again.

* * *

There was a Scottish marching band inside his head and someone really, really, _really_ loved the drums because they kept pounding them in time with the throbbing beat of his eyeballs and there were tapdancing monkeys that wanted to skate lines of pain into his skull.

He moaned pitifully, shifting to try to find a position that would dislodge the band and monkeys but that only seemed to make everything worse. There was a quiet chuckle some distance away and the sound of approaching footsteps.

"Hello to you too, Sleeping Beauty." Eddie's quiet voice was warm and familiar and comforting, even if his presence was startling to Buck's addled mind and the sounds scraped at his ears. "Open up and I'll give you some water and Advil."

It took a bit for Buck to marshal his thoughts into something resembling coherency but then he managed to get his lips open and felt the press of a straw against his tongue and closed his mouth, swallowing several much-needed mouthfuls of cool water that barely made a dent in the scoured sensation that went all the way down his throat. His eyes flickered open briefly when the straw was removed, blurry hands near his mouth pressing a tablet inside. If he'd been more aware of what was going on, he probably would have tried to savour the sensation of Eddie's thumb on his lips.

"More water, then swallow them," Eddie said, a hand running gently through his hair as Buck did as commanded with a small wince when he felt the tablets uncomfortably move down his sticky throat.

"I probably embarrassed myself last night," he whispered when Eddie took the straw away, but Buck knew he was still there because his fingers were still untangling some of the knots of Buck's hair. "I'm sorry if I said something that made you uncomfortable."

"Don't be silly," Eddie said, palm settling against Buck's cheek and thumb skimming down the bridge of his nose. "I'm glad I was here. It seemed like you needed someone."

"Oh God, what did I say?" he groaned, attempting to cover his face except that Eddie caught his wrist, slipping their fingers together and making Buck attempt to open his eyes because _what_ was Eddie doing?

"Do you remember me telling you that you're not alone?" Eddie said instead. Fragments and flickers of the conversation echoed in some part of Buck's brain but…not enough to really gain coherency. He shrugged and attempted a tiny nod anyway, mostly because Eddie's question implied Buck had said something about feeling lonely and…wasn't that just a great part of his emotional turmoil to reveal to someone and then block out because of the alcohol.

"Sorry I got melancholic on you," he muttered, pulling his hand away from Eddie and forcing himself to sit up even though the world spun and his stomach threatened to rebel with the water shifting inside his empty stomach. He cringed with a flash of memory of his body feeling filled with too much water and tried to shove it away, banishing it to the box of things he preferred pretending didn't exist. "I'll- I'll be okay."

"Will you?"

He didn't bother answering Eddie because he knew nothing he said was likely to be believed anyway. Not if he'd said too much while he was too drunk and now didn't remember it. Meeting Eddie's eyes was impossible.

His eyes caught on the red and green bag, the spilling of golden spirals that cascaded from the thin straps. "So, you got me a present?" he said, taking the easy way out because that was just the sort of person that he was.

"It only seemed fair after you got Christopher and me presents," Eddie said after an awkward moment where Buck imagined he was weighing up whether to continue pursuing Buck's tumultuous emotions or accept the diversion. Apparently, the diversion won.

"It was nothing," Buck said, even though he knew how much Chris had wanted that particular Lego collection and how much Eddie's set of cooking pans had needed replacing. And not just because Buck had badly burned the base of two of them in his attempts to cook while babysitting Christopher on the rare occasions that Eddie took a second shift for extra cash and Buck volunteered to look after the kid and try not to burn Eddie's house down. Not at all.

"Well, we still appreciated them," Eddie said, hand brushing against Buck's knee as he sat beside him on the couch and gestured towards the bag. "Do you want to open it?"

Buck eyed the bag with a small amount of uncertainty. "It's not a bomb, is it?"

Eddie snorted. "I think we've had enough of those already in our relationship, don't you?"

And dammit if Buck's heart didn't leap at those words.

"I- Uh- I just mean- You know- Like-"

"Eddie. It's fine." It wasn't. Eddie's stumbled attempt to correct himself hurt, but Buck wasn't going to tell Eddie that. He cursed how his eyes had probably widened and made Eddie realise the mistake.

"Well-" The sound of Eddie swallowing was almost certainly audible. "I- I bought the present on a bit of a whim because of what you've said lately but then after what you said last night, I- Maybe I shouldn't have-"

Buck frowned, leaning forward – head spinning be damned – to collect the bag. The coils of golden ribbon that reminded him a little of Christopher's hair unspooled when he tugged on them and inside the bag was a cube wrapped in silver paper and a rectangular shape, also wrapped in silver paper. He arched an eyebrow curiously, withdrawing the cube first and glancing at Eddie, who looked more nervous than the time he'd been extracting a live grenade out of a guy's leg with Buck hovering next to him.

Which seemed ridiculous that he could be _that_ nervous over a Christmas present.

Buck peeled away the silver paper to find a plain brown box, which he cracked open to find white Styrofoam padding inside.

"Is this thing an onion because it has almost as many layers," he said and Eddie attempted to cover his snort with a cough.

"Are you trying to quote _Shrek_ because I'm fairly sure I can quote it better than you after the number of times I've sat through it with Christopher."

"The correct answer would be that this was a souffle," Buck corrected as he prised the Styrofoam from the box. There were a couple of pieces of tape holding the Styrofoam together, because _of course_, and then Buck was done and he was peeling the tape away and…oh. _Oh_.

"I… I thought… But then what you said last night… I- If I got it wrong-"

"Shut up, Eddie," he muttered, twitching the snow globe in his hands to make the flurry of silvery white glitter shimmer around the Christmas tree inside that had an array of colourful presents beneath it. It was…something that so perfectly encapsulated some of the things he loved – and wished he had – about Christmas as a child and tried to capture now at the firehouse, in his apartment, even though his fallen tree looked rather tormented in the corner. "Thank you."

"There's, um… There's the other one," Eddie mumbled, sounding even _more_ nervous and Buck cast him a look and handed the snow globe to the other man. He tried to pretend the snowflakes fluttered because he'd handed it over and not because Eddie's hands were shaking as he reached for the second silver-wrapped package.

He barely bit back his frustrated comment at the second plain cardboard box but he opened it easily and withdrew a photo-frame that made his eyes speckle with tears. It wasn't particularly large but it was large enough to have three photos of Christopher – as a baby, and almost certainly his most recent pair of photos that Buck had been with him for at The Grove.

On small pieces of paper cut into snowflakes and tucked at the bottom of the timber frame was Christopher's too-large, still-learning scrawl:

_MY FIRST CHRISTMAS_ beneath the baby photo.

_MY FIRST CHRISTMAS WITH BUCK_ beneath the second photo.

_MY SECOND CHRISTMAS WITH MY HERO, BUCK_ beneath the third.

"I'm…really sorry I didn't get a chance to give this to you at the station just so Chris could see your reaction," Eddie said with a lopsided smile and Buck only realised how much of a mess he was when a wet laugh made him cough and sniff and wipe his eyes and hug the frame to his chest like it was the most precious thing in the world. Maybe it was the most precious thing. He couldn't come up with anything else that compared, except perhaps the actual kid himself. "That one is more Chris' present than mine. He had the idea of giving you the photos because we send them to family and as he insisted, you're a part of our family too."

Buck didn't even know what to say to that. He wasn't sure what he'd said last night but he had a feeling he'd probably overshared how lonely he felt and to get these photos, after what he'd said to Eddie while they'd waited for Chris to have his photo taken…

"I'm going to need a bigger wall for all the photos I'll end up with until he's middle aged, aren't I?" he mused and Eddie laughed, wrapping an arm around his back and tucking him into his side and…Buck really wasn't sure he could ever remember having a friend who returned all the tactility he so often craved as freely as Eddie did. Sometimes it was a distraction – the way Eddie's hand would slide over his back to commiserate over a call or the way he'd squeeze Buck's shoulder when Buck was trying to focus on his video game battle with Hen – but other times, like now, it was the only thing that kept him grounded.

"The best part about this, of course, is that there's no mess to clean up and there's no wet slush to make everything damp," Eddie continued, handing back the snow globe which Buck grasped and settled in his lap. The tiny white flakes swirled for a while before settling across the tree, or the presents, or the back of the glass. It was a simple, almost silly, little gift but to Buck it meant so much more than that because he knew it meant Eddie had been listening to him despite the complaining.

"Thank you," he said, utterly sincere even though he knew he'd been hurt and angry and taking it out on Eddie when he'd had too much to drink last night.

"There was one other present but I…uh…couldn't really wrap that one," Eddie said and Buck peered out at Eddie from beneath his arm.

"It's not a new car, is it? Because I really like my truck."

"A new-? How much do you think I _make_, Buckley?"

Buck shrugged, lips twitching with a smile. "You could be fighting again for all I know. Making some epic bank. Wanting to upgrade my wheels out of the goodness of your heart."

Eddie was laughing at him but Buck didn't think he minded, if only because it was nice to see the tense features of Eddie's face clear into something calmer and happier. He wished he could bottle that look, or whatever it was that Eddie felt in that moment, so that whenever Eddie felt lost and hurt and alone himself, Buck could hand the bottle over and restore the positivity and the equilibrium.

"I love you, Evan, but I'm not fighting again or planning to buy you a new car."

"Shame," Buck mumbled, ignoring the way his heart twitched at Eddie's easy declaration. "So, what was it you couldn't wrap?"

It was fascinating watching the way Eddie's eyes flickered with an insecurity, the tension that seeped into his shoulders which Buck was keenly aware of given his place beneath Eddie's arm.

"Was the mistletoe above us after the photo on purpose?" Eddie said and Buck frowned in confusion at the abrupt change in topic.

"No, I told you that it was an accident. I just wanted-"

"Do you wish it _had_ been there on purpose?"

Buck stared into Eddie's wide and searching hazel eyes, attention flickering between both like his right or left pupil might expose the thought processes of the other man in front of him and then everything would make sense again. What was the right answer here? Say yes and lose Eddie because it freaked him out when he didn't feel the same or say no and lose Eddie because maybe this was Eddie trying to determine how Buck felt?

Either way, it felt like he would lose Eddie and it scared the absolute shit out of him.

"Do _you_?" he ultimately retorted when he realised his head hurt too much to try to work out what the answer was that he was meant to give to Eddie when he couldn't see that there was an answer that gave him a positive ending.

"No, because I wouldn't want my first kiss with you to be because of some outdated Christmas tradition that forces people to kiss, sometimes against their will," Eddie said and it sounded so fluently composed that Buck suspected he'd been rehearsing it. All night. For days. The hell did Buck know about moving time when they weren't on shift and he'd passed out drunk at some point? Maybe he'd missed his next shift and that was why Eddie was here.

Nevertheless, Buck's heart skipped several beats in his chest. "And how _would_ you want our first kiss to be?" he said, feeling slightly emboldened when he noticed Eddie's eyes darting down to his lips and back to his eyes again. With his heart almost certainly ready to beat out of his chest, he leaned up, prepared for Eddie to pull away. But Eddie didn't. Instead, Eddie leaned into him, pressing his lips to Buck's in a brief, chaste kiss that Buck chased after when Eddie pulled away after what couldn't have been more than a second.

It took a lot not to start pouting.

"If you _really_ want me to kiss you the way I've thought, you should probably brush your teeth and let those Advil stop making your head throb," Eddie whispered, his mouth so close that Buck could sense the air moving between them.

With all the care that he could possibly possess, Buck transferred the snow globe and frame to the coffee table and then tried to stand. And though Buck was as unsteady on his feet as a newborn giraffe – and that wasn't even referring to how he almost tripped up the stairs twice and down the stairs once – he still scurried away to brush his teeth and then returned to where he'd left Eddie on the couch, crowding into his lap and folding hands around Eddie's face and neck and jaw to kiss him with all the pent-up desperation he'd had for _months_ because if this was finally happening, he wasn't going to let his opportunity go to waste. To his credit, Eddie was fully committed to going with it, his hands at Buck's waist to anchor their hips together, his mouth disappearing from Buck's to press against spots on his neck that made Buck dizzy and arch his neck further to provide more access. Whatever headache he had was gone. This was a very, _very_ good distraction from being hungover.

"Is this what you meant by not making it awkward at the station?" Buck mumbled, curling his hands against Eddie's shoulders and struggling to keep his hips still when Eddie's hands shifted to squeezing his thighs.

"I didn't think pinning you to the dining table in front of everyone was a good idea for the children," Eddie said, his breath skating warmly over Buck's neck because his lips were at the hinge of Buck's jaw.

Buck whined, although whether it was from where Eddie's mouth was or the words that spilled past them, Buck honestly wasn't sure. "I thought-" He exhaled a shaky breath, fingers flexing against Eddie's neck as he focused his thoughts into some sort of order. "I thought you'd never- I didn't think you- you even-"

Eddie kissed his jaw and then pulled away just enough to meet Buck's eyes, his gaze intense and his brown eyes as dark as night and making Buck feel like his stomach was a nest of squirming snakes that had hummingbird wings. "You didn't think what?"

"_This_," Buck managed, shifting slightly so his weight was more comfortably settled against Eddie's legs. "I didn't…think you'd…like me like this or- I don't know, it's stupid, I-"

Eddie rolled his eyes, hands skimming back to grasp Buck's waist. Only this time, his hands had pressed beneath the fabric of his shirt and the callouses of Eddie's hands against his skin was...enough to make it even harder to think coherently when they were so rough against the dips of his muscles. "And I thought _I_ was the oblivious one…"

Buck pouted, but Eddie just seemed to take that as an invitation to kiss him and Buck…really couldn't find it in himself to care or protest.

"So maybe I was wrong and Christmas doesn't suck so much this year?" he said, managing snatches of the sentence in between kisses and distracting scrapes of Eddie's hands creeping up his torso, rolling his hips into Eddie and feeling the stuttered gasp against his mouth.

Eddie hummed and when Buck cracked one eye open, Eddie had a wicked smirk and an arched eyebrow. "It could involve a whole lot more _sucking_," Eddie said and Buck…

Yeah, okay. He gave up paying attention to words and conversation after that.

* * *

_**~FIN~**_


End file.
